


The Head and the Heart

by tiger_moran



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Bisexual Character, Conversations, Cuddling & Snuggling, Insecurity, Kissing, Love, M/M, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 09:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5158373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_moran/pseuds/tiger_moran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even Moriarty has his doubts and insecurities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Head and the Heart

    “Why did you develop such feelings for me?” Moriarty asks, and Moran laughs.

     “You make it sound like a conscious thing,” he says, burrowing under the professor’s arm so that he can snuggle against Moriarty’s shoulder. “It don’t work that way.”

     “Yet you could have had your pick of countless men, or women.” Moriarty has long known that Moran does not discriminate when it comes to the sex of his partner. This thought in itself does not trouble him but from time to time he must admit to himself that though he hardly considers himself an unattractive man, he finds it hard to grasp why precisely Moran has chosen him over so many others. Although it is not always easy to tell with Moran’s seemingly coldblooded capacity for killing, he is a man of great passion, prone to thinking often with his heart (or perhaps at times with his loins) and not with his head. It astonishes Moriarty therefore that the colonel has committed himself to him rather than seeking out someone more like Moran himself.

     “I didn’t want countless other men or women,” Moran says. “I wanted you – _want_ you.”

    “I’ve noticed sometimes other men, women too, display an interest in you.” 

     “So what? Other people are attracted to you and all.”

     Moriarty pulls back slightly, enough so that he may turn to look at Moran’s face directly. “Are they?”

      “You’ve never noticed?”

      “No.” Moriarty looks away again. “Never.” He narrows his eyes as he ponders this, trying to recollect some occasion where someone may have expressed such an interest in him, but he can recount none. However he realises he has had no reason to notice such things when it comes to himself. It is others’ attraction to Moran that presents him with a possible cause for concern.  He remembers still the surge of jealousy he felt when Moran used to saunter home after spending the night in the bed of another, even though he had long tried to ignore such feelings. To acknowledge them would have been an admission that he was far more human than he cared to recall. “I am well aware that I am hardly what might be considered… conventionally attractive.”

    Moran gives a faint snort of derision. “Why should I, or you for that matter, give a tinker’s cuss about conventions? You’re a fine looking man, Professor.”

     “Yes, but…” Moriarty gazes into space and drums his fingers idly on the counterpane, until Moran reaches and clasps his hand, threading his fingers through Moriarty’s. “You could have had others, Sebastian.” Moriarty turns his face towards Moran’s again. “Someone younger; someone better attuned to you.”

     “ _You’re_ attuned to me.”

     “You say that even when you know that I do not experience many of the same desires as you? Your sexual urges…”

     Moran rolls his eyes slightly. “I’d thought we were well past the stage where this was only about sex, silly me.”

     “Well, you could have had someone easier to live with.”

     “If it’s easy it ain’t worth having.” A brief grin flickers over Moran’s face before a sense of solemnity returns. “You could have had someone better than me too though – someone more clever; someone who knows what the hell you’re talking about when you start going on about binomials and polynomials and all the rest.”

     “You are more than clever enough. Would I pay a man so well if I thought him an utter fool? Simply because you care nothing for mathematical theory, that does not make you stupid, Moran.”

     “Yes, but it does mean we have little in common,” Moran points out.

     “So what would you have me do, cast you aside?” Moriarty enquires. “Kill you?” A smile plays over his lips.

     Moran grins again. He knows full well this is only a rhetorical question. “Neither,” he says. “As I’d do neither to you. Wanting you, Professor, it may not be wholly logical but I want you all the same, no-one else. Not everything needs to be about logic.”

     “I _care_ about logic.” Moriarty shifts position, moving to crouch over Moran who remains on his back, looking up into the professor’s face.

     “Not always,” Moran says. “You’d like me to think sometimes, sir, that you ain’t anything but a head, a brain; bits of brain even, only the rational parts, no more, but we both know that ain’t true. I’ve known that ain’t true since I first saw you engrossed in a piece of music.” He is on dangerous ground here, he knows it – knows of Moriarty’s aversion to speaking of such matters; knows that to force the professor to acknowledge his humanity, with all its attendant vulnerabilities and weaknesses, vexes him greatly. Indeed something approximating fury seems to flash across Moriarty’s face; his lips compress into a thin line momentarily.

     But not only does living dangerously intoxicate Moran, he believes too with absolute conviction that the professor would not harm him. For all his pretence to be otherwise, the man is more than just a brain. When Moriarty puts a hand to the colonel’s throat Moran lets him, without protest; without flinching, and Moriarty’s hand simply remains there, resting against his throat but not squeezing, not hurting, feeling Moran’s slightly raised pulse flutter beneath his fingertips.

     When Moran does move it is not to try to push the professor’s hand away. “I do like your mind, sir, very much,” he says. “But I like this very much too.” With his gaze fixed upon Moriarty’s, he lifts his right hand and places it against the professor’s chest, over his heart, feeling its somewhat quickened beat under his hand.

     Moriarty looks down, looks away, but significantly does not retreat from Moran. He swallows, seeming about to speak, then does not. At last Moran draws his hand away from the professor’s chest, shifting it to Moriarty’s shoulder.

     “Moran…” Moriarty closes his eyes as Moran draws him down to kiss him gently on the forehead.

     “Professor.” Moran meets his gaze as Moriarty opens his eyes once more.

     “When we first met I did not suppose that we would… that we would end up this way.”

     “Nor did I.”

     “You understood then that you could never leave my employment; that you were bound to me until death.”

     “Yes sir.”

     Moriarty swallows thickly. Ordinarily such matters might not vex him on such a personal level. They might very well play upon his mind out of simple consideration for the fact that to take something by force, to gain ownership of something (or _someone_ ) through fear or threats is the mark of a mere bully; a common man, and Moriarty considers himself as being very far from common. The feelings of the something or someone in question however troubled him not at all, not until Moran came along. With the colonel though, the more time Moriarty spent in his company, the more it has come to matter to him _why_ Moran seeks such intimacy with him. The sex… well even the near-celibate professor could almost understand that. Moran is, or was, rather uninhibited about who he bestowed his sexual favours upon. That he came to lust after Moriarty surprised Moriarty not at all and he felt no guilt for bedding Moran.

     But it is the rest of it that puzzles and even troubles him – not that Moran came to his bed initially but that after a time he never really left it. Moriarty had believed Moran incapable of experiencing the softer passions; perhaps Moran himself had even thought much the same, and Moriarty had certainly believed himself incapable of coming to truly care for someone else, and yet here they are.

     “I am not ignorant of the fact, Sebastian,” he says, “that a gilded cage is still a cage.”

     Moran laughs scornfully. “You think this is my gilded cage?” He gestures broadly, indicating the handsomely furnished, tastefully decorated bedroom; the well-kept house itself. “My prison?”

     “I do not wish to be your gaoler, Sebastian. You could have had so many others,” Moriarty says again, his hand still upon Moran’s throat.

     And Moran says this time, with a slight nod of his head, “I could.” Holding the professor’s gaze still as Moriarty straddles him. There is lust and longing in that look, and something so provocative. “But so could you, but you did not.”

     “There has never been another who compares to you,” Moriarty tells him, pulling Moran into a kiss, pressing his lips against Moran’s in a gesture that seems at once to combine dominance with tenderness. And it is the truth he speaks, for the professor may brazenly lie to others but he finds it far harder to deceive Moran. There has never been anyone else who he has trusted so profoundly; whose companionship he has come to prefer over his solitude; whose happiness has come to concern him so much.

     “Then stop worrying about it,” Moran says to him, between kisses. “I want you, James; only you.”

      Soon after, on the very brink of sleep, Moriarty feels Moran curl closer against him once more, the colonel’s face close beside his on the pillow. Moriarty closes his eyes and a few minutes later, through his peaceful doze, he dimly feels the colonel shift slightly. A second or two later he hears Moran speaking softly and melodically, saying something not unpleasing to the ear but what seems to be only odd sounds and strange syllables strung together.

     “Mm?” Moriarty says sleepily, though he is too tired to ponder the matter properly or even formulate a coherent question.

     “Nothing.” Moran settles down beside him again. “Don’t matter.” He wraps his arm around Moriarty, feeling the professor relax fully as he slips into sleep. Perhaps, he thinks, the professor won’t even remember him saying anything more; maybe when he awakens he won’t ask him what on earth he was talking about. He is not sure why he did it; now it seems a little silly and he’s sure if the professor does remember and discovers what he was saying that he will scoff at him for quoting such nonsense. Even so, he thinks with a smile as he closes his eyes, it did seem rather fitting.

      _You suppose that you are the lock on the door, but you are the key that opens it. It’s too bad that you want to be someone else, you don’t see your own face, your own beauty, yet, no face is more beautiful than yours._

**Author's Note:**

> The end quotation is an English translation of Rumi. Moran was however quoting Rumi in Persian, a language Moriarty doesn't speak.


End file.
